Three weeks after ravaging Clemson, the Jay Heaps show returned home and dazzled a fall break crowd Sunday at Duke Soccer Stadium. The junior midfielder followed up his Sept. 21 hat trick at Clemson with another three-goal performance, leading the No. 9 men's soccer team (10-2) to a 4-1 win over North Carolina-Greensboro.
Heaps initiated the scoring midway through the first half, smashing a bullet into the upper right corner of the net. Stationed near the right corner of the penalty box, he escaped the jersey-tugging of UNC-G defender Nathan Horton, took sophomore forward Troy Garner's pass and blasted home a shot just over 20 minutes into the game.
"That first goal was just a great goal," Duke coach John Rennie said.
The Spartans (7-6) countered eight minutes later, when Siggi Eyjolfsson's crossing pass from the right corner set up Justin Wisdo for a score.
Almost immediately, Heaps struck back. With both teams lined up at midfield, Heaps booted the ball toward the UNC-G goal, taking almost everyone in the stadium-especially Spartan goalkeeper Trey Wilson-by surprise.
"I saw that [Wilson] was out and I thought maybe I could get it in," Heaps said. "I've done that before, [though] never in college."
Heaps didn't quite get his long shot in-it hit the crossbar-but he connected less than a minute later. Amid confusion in front of the UNC-G goal, Heaps rebounded junior midfielder Josh Henderson's miss with a header from the left side.
The score was the first of Heaps' two rebound goals, the second of which would seal the victory midway through the second half.
"That's understanding where to be and when to be; it's no luck involved," Rennie said of Heaps' rebound goals. "It's part of reading the game and sensing what's going on, and there's nobody better on our team at that than Jay."
The explosive Duke offense, which averages 3.7 goals per game and has not been shut out all year, matched its first-half output with a pair of second-half goals. As if the Blue Devils hadn't been scoring enough already, the move of junior Evan Whitfield, a two-time second-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference defender, from defense to the midfield bolstered their attack.
"We make a sacrifice," Heaps said. "We could put Evan in the back and have maybe the strongest defense in the country. But we make a sacrifice of our skill in the back, and we get Evan in the midfield, with his speed and his ability to dribble.
"He gives us so many more options on the attack. Now [opponents] have to worry about getting beat by Evan, and it opens up things for Josh [Henderson] and [Garner] and me."
Henderson and Duke's leading scorer, freshman Ali Curtis, hooked up early in the second half to stretch the Blue Devil advantage to 3-1. Henderson popped a gorgeous pass beyond the UNC-G defense to the speedy Curtis, who shot low and to the left, past a helpless Wilson.
Curtis set up Heaps' third goal with a 23-yard smash against the right post. After Whitfield had sent him a crossing pass from the right side of the field, Curtis nailed his shot. The rebound came directly to a wide-open Heaps, who seemed to know where Curtis' shot would land.
"We're starting to recognize where everybody is and where people are going to be," Heaps said. "I feel like I'm starting to know where Ali is going to go and which way [freshman midfielder] Stephen Pate is going to break for a feed."
The UNC-G game kept Duke in shape for the ACC season both in intensity and through physical play.
Duke expects more physical play at 7 p.m. tonight, when it travels to Winston-Salem for a crucial ACC match with Wake Forest (7-4, 1-1 in the ACC). The Demon Deacons, who have won three of their last four, wreaked havoc on the league race Saturday night, shocking No. 4 N.C. State, 4-0. Two weeks earlier, they stunned then-No. 3 James Madison, 2-0, with another impressive defensive showing.
"They're playing as well as anybody," said Rennie, who likened Wake Forest, which suffered four early-season losses, to UNC-Greensboro. "Wake saw N.C. State as a target. You make yourself a target, you're going to have to be ready for it. We're a target right now."
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